130 THE YUKI. 
of leaves. They say their husbands “ will not get tired if they dance all 
the time”. When they return they join in the dance, in a circle within 
that of the women. Each woman is behind her own husband, and she wets 
him with water, and sprinkles acorn flour over him, to groom and rest him, 
and waves a wisp of leaves over him to cool him. 
When rain falls in autumn enough to give the earth a thorough soak- 
ing, and the angle-worms begin to come to the surface, then the Yuki house- 
keeper turns her mind to a good basket of worm-soup. Armed with 
her “ woman-stick,” the badge of her sex—which is a pole about six feet 
long and one and a half inches thick, sharpened and fire-hardened at one 
end—she seeks out a piece of rich, moist soil, and sets to work. Thrusting 
the pole into the ground about a foot, she turns it around in every direc- 
tion, and so agitates the earth that the worms come to the surface in large 
numbers for a radius of two or three feet around. She gathers and carries 
them home, and cooks them into a rich and oily soup, an aboriginal vermi- 
celli, which is much esteemed by the good wife’s family. 
After this lickerish mess is eaten, perhaps she discovers that the youngest 
boy’s hair needs cutting, and she brings out the scissors. This consists of 
a flat piece of stone and a sharp-edged bone; the stone is held under the 
hair, while with the bone she hageles it off as best she can. Then with a 
coal of fire she evens off the ends around quite nicely. 
Tattooing is done with pitch-pine soot and asharp-pointed bone. After 
the designs have been traced on the skin, the soot is rubbed in dry. In 
another place the reader will find a series of tattoo patterns employed by 
different tribes. 
Candidates for the degree of M. D. pass their competitive examination 
in the assembly hall—an examination more severe than the contention 
between Doctor Cherubino and Doctor Serafino in “the great School of 
Salern”. It consists simply of a dance, protracted through day and night 
without cessation, until they all fall utterly exhausted except one, who is 
then admitted to practice the healing art. 
One method of procedure is as follows: The patient is placed on the 
ground stark naked, face upward, and two doctors take their stations at 
his feet, one directly behind the other. Striking up a crooning chant, they 
